S. K. Epperson

A small percentage of the people (roughly 4%) who downloaded Green Lake  have reacted with extreme bitterness to some of the content, specifically the depiction of the child killer.  Crimes against children are horrible to think about, let alone write, and while most of us turn away in fear and disgust at reports of child trafficking, molestation and murder, we cannot deny they exist. The world contains people who do indescribably despicable things when no one is looking. These people are never easy to recognize. Often, they are like the character in the book, charming, friendly, with a job and a family.  They seem normal to us. Trustworthy.  It is their thoughts that are not normal, and in depicting the thoughts and inner dialogue of this person I borrowed heavily from years of reading accounts and confessions of criminals convicted of the very same crimes. This is what they think when they are alone.  This is how they behave when they aren’t afraid of being seen.

We love to share videos of people doing good deeds.  We post them on Facebook and YouTube and tweet and retweet them. We treat them like the exception rather than the rule and maybe we watch and rewatch them because it’s nice to see actual proof that people really are basically decent.  I don’t know.  I’m as ignorant as the next person when it comes to what makes us tick…or twitch. What I do know is I’m grateful for the other ninety-something percent of readers who felt the human goodness in the story outweighed the evil.  Thanks for hanging in there.

~ by S.K. Epperson on January 27, 2014.

Posted in Art, author, thriller, horror, e-books, Fiction, Horror, Novels, published, Suspense, True Crime, Uncategorized, writers, writing
Tags: crime, Fictional Characters, Good versus Evil, Graphic Depictions, Green Lake, Reader's Reactions